Discourse-generally refers to written or spoken communication or debate. The usual approach to ideology is to study its effects on discourse forms and meanings, and how discursive structures may in turn contribute to the formation and transformation of ideologies. However, ideologies are also at play when language users engage in the ongoing construction of context as subjective, as well as group-sensitive, interpretations of the social situation. Ideologies thus form the basis of the social representations and practices of group members, including their discourse, which at the same time serves as the means of ideological production, reproduction and challenge (for details, see Van Dijk, 1998). The point of ideological discourse analysis is not merely to discover underlying ideologies, but to systematically link structures of discourse with structures of ideologies.